Deforestation rises as Brazil debates protection laws

A continuing political row over Brazil’s forest conservation rules is causing a resurgence of deforestation, according to the county’s environmental scientists and law enforcers.

Backing for these fears emerged this week with reports from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research remote sensing operations that 480 square kilometres of forest in the state of Mato Grosso was cleared during the eight weeks of March and April 2011. That is a fivefold increase on last year.

Mato Grosso is the southernmost state of the Amazon region, and its landowners have been responsible for a third of the Amazon rainforest loss since 1988.

The main legal brake on deforestation is the national Forest Code, which requires farmers in the Amazon to retain 80 per cent of the forest as “legal reserves”, and farmers elsewhere to protect 20 per cent of natural habitat.

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Farmers’ backlash

The code, in force since 1965, has been flouted for years. But as national and local administrations have stepped up their efforts to police it, there has been a backlash from farmers.

Meanwhile, the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies has spent months debating proposals to water down the code. After a series of postponements, it may make a final decision next week.

The changes may involve adjustments to the percentage rules, devolution of control to states, and the granting of amnesties to those guilty of illegal deforestation in the past. An amnesty would mean that existing orders for reforestation would not have to be acted on.

Any decision would require the approval of the Senate and Brazil’s newly installed president, Dilma Rousseff. During her election campaign last year Rousseff pledged to defend the forests, but she will be under pressure from farmers, who say the laws saddle them with higher costs than rivals in Argentina and elsewhere.

Progress undermined

Conservationists say any relaxation of the code could undermine a success story in the Amazon, where rates of deforestation, though still considerable, have been falling. Last year they reached their lowest level since the 1980s, and just a third the rate of 2004.

Besides the political uncertainty over the forest code, other possible reasons for the surge in deforestation in Mato Grosso include the lingering effects of drought last year that left vegetation vulnerable to fire.

The impact of any changes to the forest code could be equally great in the Cerrado savannah east of the Amazon, where deforestation rates have risen to twice those in the Amazon to make way for prairie farms.

Private landowners in the Cerrado hope that a change to the forest code would remove their obligation to protect some of their land. “If that happens the consequences for the Cerrado will be very bad,” says Fernando Lutz, who researches the Cerrado ecosystem and is based at the University of Bahia in the agribusiness town of Barreiras.